1. Field
Apparatuses and methods consistent with exemplary embodiments relate to communication devices, and more particularly, to chip antennas for near field communication and methods of manufacturing the chip antennas.
2. Description of the Related Art
An antenna is one of the elements that constitute a radio frequency (RF) wireless communication system. Radiation efficiency and gain of the antenna may be important factors for evaluating the power efficiency of the RF wireless communication system. If radiation efficiency and gain of the antenna are high, a burden of a power amplifier that consumes large power may be reduced in an RF wireless communication system and power efficiency of the RF wireless communication system may be increased, which means that the time for using an RF wireless communication system that uses a battery can be increased.
Therefore, an antenna may be manufactured by using a high performance substrate such as a Duroid substrate, a TLY substrate, or a low temperature co-fired ceramic (LTCC) substrate. However, in the case of an off-chip antenna, generally, the antenna has a larger size than the off chip. Also, when, as in a power amplifier, an antenna is connected to an end point of an RF portion by wire bonding or flip-chip bonding, impedance matching is required. Also, in this process, even though the antenna itself has a broadband characteristic, a bandwidth limitation may occur in the whole system. Therefore, by taking into account the cost for separately manufacturing the antenna and the additional cost for connecting the chip to the antenna, the off-chip antenna is not suitable for communicating between chips.
However, an on-chip antenna uses a metal line process that is provided for connection between elements in a silicon process and uses the same a manufacturing process as other RF circuits. Accordingly, in the case of the on-chip antenna, an additional cost is not incurred for manufacturing the on-chip antenna, and thus, the costs for manufacturing a whole system may be reduced. Also, due to the high dielectric constant of silicon, the size of the on-chip antenna may be reduced. However, power loss due to the high resistance and high dielectric constant of silicon, radiation efficiency and gain of the on-chip antenna may be reduced.
In the case of a general dipole antenna, it is difficult to apply the general dipole antenna to a system that requires a broadband characteristic due to the narrow band width of the general dipole antenna.